Waldron: Still a Lot of Work to Be Done on Transactional Data Rule
Roger Waldron, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, writes about the roundtable hosted by the General Services Administration (GSA) to discuss its transactional data rule. Waldron questions a number of the philosophical underpinnings of the rule, including whether the government—as was stated at the roundtable—is a “Fortune One” company by virtue of the size of its spend. Waldron also questioned whether the cost of the rule is being properly assessed: “It is impossible to assess the value of TDR without understanding its direct and indirect cost for industry and government, and any attempt to do so is simply an exercise in futility.”
Vendor Registry Looks to Help Governments Streamline Procurement
Government Technology profiles a new company, Vendor Registry, which aims to help small government organizations improve their procurement. According to the story, “The firm has essentially set up a registry where vendors and government entities can set up profiles. Governments can send out bid notifications, keep track of who’s responded and facilitate conversations between departments.” The company closed on a $1.8 million seed round at the end of January.
HUD Needs to Improve Its Cost-Estimating Practices
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit found the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) lacked a reliable method for estimating the cost of modernizing its sizable information technology (IT) infrastructure. GAO noted that HUD requested $36 million to modernize its IT systems in 2017, but that “critical to the success of such efforts is the department’s ability to develop reliable cost estimates that project life-cycle costs and provide the basis for, among other things, informed decision making and realistic budget formulation. GAO said it found “significant weaknesses” and a lack of best practices in HUD’s cost-estimating practices.